Jungle Fever
by darkdemondog24
Summary: When Pinky and Brain are mistaken for wild mice by animal rights activists and taken from their home in the lab, they find themselves helpless in the cruel, wild jungle. Brain realizes for the first time that he is lost in his surroundings, and more dependent on Pinky than ever before.


**This is based on the episode of Pinky and the Brain, 'Welcome to the Jungle'. It's just my own little take on it, since I found it extremely adorable that Brain was so helpless and actually dependent on Pinky throughout the episode. You might have to actually watch the episode to understand. **

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"What are we ever going to do? How will we get back home?" I bellowed, my distraught voice carrying off into the thick, endless maze of trees and brush surrounding us for miles.

"Hmm…" my dimwitted companion answered, rubbing his chin in thought. "There's a pile of dung under that tree!" he pointed out.

I sighed in defeat and re-assed our current situation. A group of animal rights activists had broken into Acme Labs and mistaken Pinky and I for helpless captives awaiting rescue. Those imbeciles thought by dropping us into a jungle environment, we'd be back in our natural habitat—but the opposite was true. Most of my life had been spent in a lab, it's all I know, I didn't have the skills to survive out in the wilderness at all! I was only a helpless, genetically altered lab mouse, not at all fit to live outside of a cage!

As usual, I immediately tried to conjure up a brilliant and elaborate plan of some sort to get us out of here, but aside from some mathematical rambling without any helpful results, I was drawing a blank. I didn't have any of the tools I needed out here to do anything useful! In the lab I had tools, steel parts, wires, and power, but out here the only things available for me were leaves, dirt, trees and…sticks. Like the one Pinky was playing with now.

"The stick is your friend Brain!" he was telling me as he held the useless twig in front of him as if it were a homing device leading his way along the dirt path. "Zort! Lead us through the jungle, sticky!"

"Pinky, would you put that thing down!" I ordered. Sure, he had used the stick to get a mango out of a tree earlier, but I didn't see how it was going to help guide us through the treacherous forest.

"Well what's the matter Brain?" Pinky asked in his usual optimistic tone of voice. "Aren't you enjoying our little adventure through the jungle? I've always wanted to live in the great outdoors! Narf!"

I failed to comprehend how Pinky could always seem so calm and confident in even the most life-threatening situations. I especially found it strange that he actually seemed to know what he was doing out here, as if he possessed some keen survival instinct deep inside his tiny head that I did not. It was surely mind boggling how a mindless idiot like Pinky could know what to do in a situation even better than I did, but it was true.

"Pinky this isn't an adventure." I exclaimed, ignoring the urge to hurt him. "Don't you see the danger we're in? We have no food or water out here, no shelter! We're surrounded by plants and animals that could potentially kill us! Aren't you worried about how we'll ever survive? Or if we'll ever see the labs again?"

"Hmmm…" he started, rubbing his chin again. Suddenly Pinky stood as frozen as a statue, and glanced over at the bushes behind us, where a rustling noise could be heard. Before either of us had time to react, a wild boar came charging full force out of the bushes, directly towards us. Startled, my eyes grew as wide as dinner plates, and I dove out of the way in fear. I glanced behind me to see if Pinky had done the same, but was surprised to see him using the stick he found to chase after the rabid animal into the jungle!

"Pinky come back!" I shouted, but soon I was alone in the clearing, and my friend was out of sight.

I cautiously backed up a few steps, only to come face to face with another horrendous creature, a slithery green lizard with fierce, hungry red eyes. I feebly tried to reason with it, instinctively showing my dominance by getting the animal to bow down to me, but it didn't seem to listen, and soon I was wrapped in its slimy tongue and swallowed whole. However, I was only stuck yelling and screaming inside the foul beast's mouth for a few moments before I was spit out again, and before I knew it I was flying through the air—right into a puddle of what I soon realized to be quicksand.

My feet felt like they were being sucked down into the Earth as if the mud was a vacuum, and slowly I started to sink down to my knees, then to my waist, then my chest. The more I struggled to get out, the faster I seemed to be pulled down! I waved my arms frantically and cried out, desperately trying to work my way free, but the sticky substance was already up to my neck! Then suddenly, a heroic Tarzan-like cry was heard echoing through the tree tops, and just as my vision was obstructed by the quicksand closing in on me, someone grabbed my hand and pulled me out.

I was flying through the air again for a few moments until I landed back down forcefully on the jungle floor. As I sat up, I noticed that my quicksand encounter had rendered my fur brown and sticky. Pinky was standing before me, and I soon realized he had been the one that saved me.

"Don't worry Brain, tonight, we eat!" he announced, and pulled something out from the bushes. It looked like a…boar! It was completely tied up! Pinky had successfully hunted and killed an animal ten times his size? Impossible!

"How…how did you…" I stuttered, gazing up at the wild beast in utter disbelief at my friend's impossible accomplishment.

He laughed at my reaction. "Oh it was easy Brain! I just used my friend the stick!"

"Just a stick?" I asked, still dumbfounded by this. How had Pinky suddenly become so good at…everything? He was the most small-minded, dimwitted person I knew, yet so far he had seemed to know the jungle like the back of his hand, though he's never lived out here himself. And here I was, supposed to be the superior mouse, future ruler of the world, and I couldn't even find food, or get out of quicksand by myself! All I had was my wits, but apparently that wasn't enough out here, I needed basic survival skills in order to survive in the wilderness—which I unfortunately lacked. I felt so weak and helpless and…scared here in the jungle, it felt so strange for me to suddenly be the dependent mouse out of the two of us.

Suddenly all the stress and shock from everything that had went on was rushing to my head, and I felt incredibly dizzy. The last thing I remembering seeing was the canopy of leaves above me before I blacked out on the soft jungle floor.

When I awoke, I was staring up at the sky, or what I could see of it through the thick leaves at least. From what I could tell, it was considerably darker than it had been earlier, signaling that some time had passed since I was last conscious. Slowly, I picked myself off the ground and rubbed my head, which was aching a bit, and upon touching my fur I realized that it was still a bit sticky from the quicksand incident. However, the next thing I noticed was the absence of a certain small minded mouse, and I found myself overcome with worry when I found that the clearing was void of any trace of him.

"P-Pinky?" I called, stumbling over his name with uncertainty, and a hint of worry.

The dead bull carcass was still there, but it had been stripped to the bone!

"Pinky?" I called again, louder this time as I began to wander off in search of him. I came upon a line in the ground and decided to follow it, though I was jittery and felt vulnerable walking into the jungle alone. What was happening to me? This harsh environment had turned me into a complete coward, and suddenly I felt helplessly lost in my surroundings!

I bumped into something abruptly, and thankfully realized that I had found who I was looking for.

"Pinky!" I cried. "You shouldn't wander off like that, I don't think we should be separated out here!" I told him, immediately jumping to his side and glancing nervously around me. The reason I wanted him and I to stay together was partly because I didn't want to end up losing him in this never ending maze of overgrown vegetation, but mostly because he actually seemed to know what he was doing, and I felt slightly more at ease when he was by my side. Ha, me, the Brain, feel better with Pinky around to guide me? This jungle was really taking its toll on my common sense!

"Oh hi Brain!" he greeted me, still happy and carefree despite our dire circumstances. "I was just drawing this line in the dirt so that we can always find our way back!"

"There's no time for that!" I told him, pointing up at the sky, which was darkening by the second. "It's going to be night time soon! If we don't find some sort of shelter we'll be exposed to predators that lurk around during the night!"

"Narf! I think I saw a hollowed out tree up ahead that we could use as a shelter!" he suggested, already starting to walk off towards it. I quickly followed suit, still nervously darting my eyes around, feeling as if something was watching me from the bushes.

I could have sworn there was a rustling sound and a sinister growl coming from behind me. The sound, whether it was real or just a figment of my own subconscious, startled me, and I quickened my pace, practically glued to Pinky's side. I found myself involuntarily latching onto his tail as a means of guidance. Something about this place was not only striking fear into me, I was actually feeling extremely dependent on Pinky all of a sudden, and didn't want to be without him for a second.

Eventually, we came across a large tree, covered in vines and other gnarly, overgrown plants. The roots of the tree were poking out from under the dirt all around it, and in the trunk, sure enough, there was an opening where part of the bark was hollowed out. The space was just large enough to accompany the two of us, and we had reached it just in time, since by now the sun had completely set. I let go of Pinky's tail and scrambled into the opening.

At least in here we would have a slightly better chance of surviving the night.

Pinky didn't join me in the hollowed out tree trunk, instead he leaned back against one of the tree roots and gazed out into the night sky, which was sprinkled with glimmering stars. It would have been an enjoyable view for me as well if I wasn't so jumpy.

"Who wants to hear a scary story?" Pinky asked, clapping his hands together joyfully.

"N-no thanks!" I declined. This jungle was scary enough.

"Once upon a time there was a vast, green, beautiful jungle in the middle of nowhere…" he began, despite how reluctant I was to hear it. "And in that jungle there was a horrible, foul monster!" Pinky crossed his eyes and scowled, trying to make a scary face to impersonate the 'monster' in his tale. Usually simple fairy tales wouldn't frighten me in the least bit, but the fact that we were surrounded by real life predators that would gladly enjoy two helpless lab mice as a tasty snack made the story a bit more believable, and me a bit more credulous.

"Pinky stop it!" I ordered, curling up into a ball and backing into the corner of my shelter.

"But I didn't get to the best part!" he said. "The monster had a taste for blood! And especially loved to eat little animals of the forest! He'd grind their teeth to make his pudding! Poit! Or something like that…"

"Enough!" I shouted. "Pinky, why don't you just get some sleep so that we'll be well rested for tomorrow? I'd like to find a way out of here as soon as possible…"

"Okay Brain!" he obeyed, climbing into the hollowed out tree with me and nestling into the other corner.

I tried hard to forget where I was and forget all my worries and fears so that I could sleep, but horrifying thoughts kept rushing back into my mind. What if Pinky and I never made it out of here? What if we were eaten by a ferocious predator, or swallowed by merciless quick sand, or poisoned by toxic plants, or even skewered alive by prickly vines? What if we slowly and painfully starved to death out here? I huddled closer into the corner, and looked out into the vast, dark jungle. I felt eyes on me wherever I looked, and was suddenly terrified of everything around me. I felt myself trembling helplessly, and suddenly craved the feeling of knowing that someone was there for me, to protect me and comfort me.

"Pinky?" I whispered.

The only response was light snoring coming from a few feet away.

"Pinky!" I called a little louder, too petrified to move the short distance to Pinky's side of the shelter to wake him up myself.

Suddenly I heard jostling from nearby. "Wha…what is it Brain?" I heard him ask with a yawn.

"C-can you come over h-here?" I stuttered, not even recognizing my own shaky voice.

It was too dark to see Pinky from where he was, but suddenly he moved over to my side, and his face was dimly outlined by the moonlight that shone through to the jungle floor. "What is it Brain?" he asked in a half-awake tone of voice.

I didn't say anything. I threw my arms around my friend and pulled him as close to me as I could in a tight hug. It had the exact effect that I was hoping for, as soon as Pinky was by my side, I was distracted from the terrors that lurked all around us. The warmth of his fur, the gentle rise and fall of his chest and he breathed, and even the very faint sound of his heart beating beside me was enough to comfort me and chase away my irrational fears, and suddenly I wasn't in the middle of the unforgiving jungle, I was at home in the lab, out of danger and beside my closest friend.

"Brain…? Are you feeling alright?" he asked, not pulling away from me, rather nestling into a comfortable position beside me. "Not that I don't enjoy it, poit! But you're usually not one for being affectionate. If I ever get this close to you, you'd bop me on the head!"

"I just…" I started, unsure of what to say. I didn't want to admit my sudden fear of being alone out in the jungle to him, since I wanted Pinky to look up to me as a leader, not down on me as a coward. "I feel safer around you, Pinky." I confessed, wrapping his slender body tighter in my grasp and nuzzling into his fur.

"Oh Brain…" Pinky said, his tone slightly more reassuring, as if he had detected my hidden fear and was trying to comfort me. I felt his fingers run gently across the top of my head in slow, comforting strokes, and the action helped me relax. I was suddenly realizing how exhausted I was, and began to drift off into sleep. "Don't worry, we'll be out of this jungle in no time." Pinky said, his voice growing fainter and fainter to me as my eyes slowly shut.

Before I drifted into unconsciousness, whether it was an emotional moment for me or I was so absentminded that I was uttering nonsense, I whispered, "Don't you ever leave my side…" and then blacked out, with my best friend wrapped securely in my arms.


End file.
